


The Softest Touch

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Fluff, Gentleness, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Seine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-31 05:30:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: Valjean, Javert, a stormy day, a sore knee, a warm fire and a blanket.





	The Softest Touch

**Author's Note:**

> I have no apologies for how fluffy this is.

Outside the library window, the March rains beat upon the windowpanes, and the trees bent almost in half in the wind. It had been so the entire week, or thereabouts, not that Jean minded it. But Javert was like a caged animal when he could not walk, and so he had donned his greatcoat and his hat and stepped out into the weather to fetch his own Saturday newspaper, rather than allowing Jean to slip a gamin the money to purchase it for him. He was not been long in his errand.

“It’s my damn knee,” he grumbled, allowing Jean to offer him a hand up the front step. “Am I to suffer every time it is damp for the rest of my life?”

He took the newspaper from inside his coat, and pulled a face, for the edge was wet and curling where rain had snuck down his collar. Jean took the paper and went into the library, newly laid with a fire, and put it carefully on the hearth where it would soon dry. He came back to find Javert cursing as he tried to pull off his boot. 

“Sit down, my dear,” he said, gesturing at the bench he had installed for the grandchildren, and knelt down before Javert could stop him. 

“I am not an invalid,” Javert said, but the relief on his face as he took the weight off his knee was stark, and he groaned when Jean pulled the boot away, despite how gentle he tried to be. Jean ran a hand up Javert’s damp trouser leg and nodded. The knee was hot to his touch, even beneath the wet fabric. 

“I will fetch you some dry clothes, and the ointment,” he said, accepting Javert’s hand to get to his own feet. He left Javert to get to the library sofa on his own and went to fetch the things. When he got back, Javert was installed by the fire, his bad leg stretched out in front of him. He pulled his wet shirt over his head and accepted the dry one Jean offered to him, then unbuttoned his trousers. 

Between them, they managed to get them off without too much swearing, but Javert’s face was pale as he sat back down. Jean knelt before him once more and examined the knee. He was right – it was swollen and red. He glanced up. Javert was gritting his teeth, eyes closed. Ah well – best to get it over with. Jean took a large scoop of the ointment from the jar and massaged it as gently as he could into the knee. He had learned over the past year how much he could touch before Javert snapped at him, and they rarely exchanged cross words over it these days, but he did not like to push him to that edge. 

“I should not have gone out,” Javert mumbled. “You were right.”

“It is no matter now,” Jean said, running his hand behind Javert’s knee to rub some of the ointment into the tight muscles there. A tremor ran through Javert then, as his calloused fingertips brushed the soft skin, and he paused, then did it again. Javert’s hand tightened into a fist, but it was not from pain, Jean was sure. Even now, Javert was so easily overwhelmed by affection. 

“Jean,” he sighed. “Jean -”

Carefully, Jean knelt beside him on the sofa and kissed him. Javert’s hand loosened from its fist and came to grasp at his shirt front, holding him close. 

“You’re too good to me,” he said, as Jean kissed first one side of his mouth, then the other. “Too good.”

“Hush now. I will fetch a blanket, and you will stay here today.”

And so the library was where they stayed for the rest of the morning, Javert with a blanket draped over his lap to spare him the pain of donning his trousers once more. Jean brought them some lunch, and they stayed by the fire into the afternoon, when Jean picked up their latest book. 

Javert read the newspaper every day, faithful to the last page, but he was not often persuaded to take a book, much preferring to listen to Jean read aloud. He claimed he had little patience for the stories himself, but could tolerate them when read in Jean’s voice. Indeed, until the day he moved in and books became an everyday occurrence, he had by his own admission never finished a novel.

“I could scarce afford such things,” he’d said. “And they’re so often frivolous.”

“You do not find them frivolous when I read them,” Jean said mildly. “You seem to enjoy them.”

“I enjoy your company,” Javert said. “I would listen to you recite a list of the Paris streets, if it meant that I could be at your side.”

It was the kind of truth that Javert had become brave enough to tell, after Jean spent many hours trying to get him to talk about himself.

“Well,” Jean smiled and squeezed Javert’s thigh. “We are lucky then, are we not, that we have excellent novels instead?”

On this afternoon, Jean read two chapters of their book aloud, before Javert picked up the newspaper. He would turn to that now, whilst Valjean took up his own book to study for an hour or two. Today was an exception in that they had been beside the fire all day, but the reading was a part of their routine that had changed little in a year, except now they sat closer together. In a lifetime that had been lived on the edge, Valjean found unspeakable pleasure in the sameness of it, the assurance that tomorrow would be much like today. Even more pleasing was that Javert too took comfort from him, from their routine, from their life together. 

He had not been reading long when he realised that the turning of the newspaper pages had stopped, and he glanced to his left to see that Javert had fallen asleep, his head resting on the back of the sofa. That was good – his face was less pinched with pain in his sleep, and perhaps he would feel better when he woke, although not with his neck at such an angle. The sofa was just long enough for Javert to stretch out if he could rest his bad leg on the foot stool, and so Jean woke him. Javert turned bleary eyes on him, but allowed himself to be manhandled into a more comfortable position, so that his leg was resting off the sofa and his head was on Jean’s lap, and then he was asleep once more. 

Jean held his book in one hand and with the other stroked Javert’s hair. As though he could read his mind, even in sleep, Javert reached out and grasped at his hand. Jean smiled and eyed the clock, putting his book down. They had time before he would need to make dinner, and he was not about to disturb Javert. So he put his own head back on the sofa and closed his eyes.

Warmth flooded his chest. How lucky he was, to be here in his own library, safe from the raging storm outside, with a trusting head upon his lap and his heart held safe in two gentle hands.


End file.
